I won’t go into details, but last week my coworkers and I were in need of a little cheering up so I turned to Edith Mae Cummings’ Pots and Pans and Millions: A Study in Woman’s Right to Be in Business; her Proclivities and Capacity for Success (whew!) and found the following. It was published by the National School of Business Science for Women right here in Washington, D.C., and I do believe it has helped pull me out of my slump. If it can work for me, it can work for anyone, as long as you have hope! All righty, then!
1929: Make Success Visible
Many women form the chronic habit of indulging in fits of depressing that we call the ‘blues.’ They allow the ‘blues’ an easy entrance to their minds, in fact are always at home to them and are susceptible to every form of discouragement that comes along. Every little setback, every little difficulty, sends them into the ‘blues’ and they will say ‘what’s the use?’ As a result their work is poor and ineffective, and they do not accomplish the things they desire.
Every time you give way to discouragement, every time you are blue, you are going backward, your destructive thoughts are tearing down what you have been trying to build. One fit of discouragement ~ visualizing failure or poverty ~ will rapidly destroy the result of much triumphant thought building. Your creative forces will harmonize with your thoughts, your emotions and moods; they will create in sympathy with them.
Saturate your mind with hope, the expectation of better things, with the belief that your dreams are coming true. Be convinced that you are going to win out; let your mind rest with success thoughts. Don’t let the enemies of your success and happiness dominate in your mind or they will bring to you the condition they represent.
I know of nothing that gives more satisfaction than the consciousness that we have formed the habit of winning, the habit of victory, the habit of carrying a victorious mental attitude, of walking, acting, talking, looking like a winner. That sort of attitude always keeps the dominant, helpful qualities to the fore ~ always in the ascendancy.
One of the most obstinate of habits in life, and one fatal to efficiency, is the habit of feeling defeated.
Source: Cummings, Edith Mae. Pots and Pans and Millions. Washington, D.C.: National School of Business Science for Women, 1929.
~ pp. 277-78 ~
[Note to Readers: This was obviously written just after 9/11...] No joking around this week, dear friends. As the helicopters pass over my Washington, D.C., home just blocks from the Capitol, I think endlessly of the friends and family and strangers touched by the horrible tragedy that was September 11. I struggled tonight to find an appropriate quote and still don’t know if this is the right one, but it’s a start. This simple selection is from Arthur Gould and E. E. and M. A. Dodson’s book titled How to Obtain Your Desires.
This week’s selection is from Professor T. W. Shannon’s Nature’s Secrets Revealed: Scientific Knowledge of The Laws of Sex Life and Heredity or, Eugenics. You never know ~ this might come in handy someday.
This one seems appropriate to start out the new year. It’s from Vivilore: The Pathway to Mental and Physical Perfection, which was written in 1904 by Mary Ries Melendy. I wonder if folks one hundred years ago resolved to do this or that around December 31st?
My older brother Chris celebrates a birthday this week. Most of the advice I found about brothers and sisters was about sibling rivalry, which we don’t have at all (except that my website is so much better than 
Wow! The Fun Encyclopedia certainly does cover it all: “Fun with Icebreakers,” “Fun with Mental Games,” “Fun Outdoors,” “Fun with Music,” and “Fun with Puppets,” just to name a few. There is so much fun here that I didn’t know where to begin, but then I stumbled across the introduction to the chapter titled “Fun with Magic,” written by E. L. Crump. But beware ~ it was written in 1940, so you might want to do a little research on the addresses before mailing in your subscription checks for those magazines.
Q Dear Miss Abigail:
Q Dear Miss Abigail:
Q Dear Miss Abigail:
Q Dear Miss Abigail: